Unopened Doors
by Saber Girls
Summary: A saga in short segments of what could have been. AU, in other words. Ffamran/Ashe, Rasler/Ashe, Vaan/Penelo.
1. Ii: Perhaps a Rubicon

Untitled

_I.i_

_Perhaps a Rubicon_

**Judicial Order Headquarters, Upper Archades**

"They'll offer you a position as Magister," Prime Judge Drace said, sipping her wine, "now that Zecht's gone."

Ffamran grimaced. "It should be you."

"No. It shouldn't. There aren't too many Nabradias left. We'll be taking on Rozarria soon, and brute strength will no longer do. We're going to need thinkers, and you, young man, are a consummate thinker."

"You've been in the service longer."

"I've been a nursemaid as much as a judge for ten years now. I'm out of practice, Ffamran."

"None the less, you would have gotten the job if I hadn't been promoted to Prime." Ffamran had risen through the four ranks of lesser judges in record time, starting as a Quartrinary when he was sixteen, fresh from his year early graduation from the Akademy, despite his lack of formal training. _Judgeships handed out to the family of any noble who happens to be in favor at court. Just one of the myriad things_, he though, _that are wrong with this system. _A thought flashed across his mind, almost to fast for him to catch, and it made him set his own wineglass down and take a deep breath: _Just one of the things I could fix_.

"So, will you accept the position?" asked Jalin Rakans, the third of the Primes who had been under Zecht's command.

No one would turn down Magistership, but Ffamran Bunansa had proven time and time again that what seemed to apply to everyone did not necessarily apply to Ffamran.

Judge Bunansa looked into his colleague's eyes, looked beyond, into his own future, his country's future, even.

"Yes."


	2. Iii: The Fall of Dalmsca

_I.ii_

_The Fall of Dalmasca_

**Royal Palace, Rabanaster**

The first thing Rasler saw on opening his eyes was the rather large nose of Doctor Fellicks, the Royal Physician. He let out a loud groan that was not entirely caused by physical pain.

"Go fetch Her Highness!" yelled the Doctor to someone out of Rasler's field of vision. "He's awake."

"Wish I wasn't," he muttered, finding his voice surprisingly hoarse. He coughed.

"Whatever you may wish, My Lord," said Fellicks, who, Rasler now recalled, had annoyingly fine hearing. "You gave us quite a scare."

Rasler blinked, trying to keep the doctor's face, now at a more reasonable distance, in focus. "How long was I out?" he asked, but he wasn't awake to hear the answer.

* * *

His wife was at his side him the next time he woke, holding his hand, sobbing quitely.

"Ashe," he said, more roughly than he had intended, "what's wrong?"

"My father is dead, Rasler. We've lost the war." Another woman would have tried to spare him the shock. He would not have loved another woman as he did her.

He wonders, as the servants help him to walk for the first time in nearly a month, if he will ever be as strong as he once was.

* * *

_By decree of His Excellency Emperor Gramis Solidor, by the power vested in him by the Senate and the People of Archadia, and by right of conquest, the Kingdom of Dalmasca is hereby abolished from this time forth, and its former lands are annexed and placed under the protection of the Archadian Empire, and shall henceforth be known as Dalmasca Territory..._

* * *

A few days later he was able to walk with the aid of a cane, and it was in this way that he came upon Ashe, sitting at her father's desk, eyes blank and with a document baring the seal of the Archadian Emperor before her. She was twirling a letter opener in the shape of the sword of a Dalmascan knight in her left hand and her right griped the arm of her father's chair so tightly her knuckles were white. He hobbled over and gently took the dull blade from her hands.

"I thought it wrong," she said, "to hold a formal coronation so soon."

* * *

_... monarchy shall be allowed to continue, in recognition of the spiritual and ceremonial importance of ..._

* * *

By law, she has been the head of state of Dalmasca since the moment of her father's death, but she cannot be a queen without a coronation. Archadian troops march into Rabanaster on the fifth day of the fifth month of the year seven hundred and two of the Valendian Calender. A week later, Queen Ashelia B'nargin Dalmasca I and King Rasler Heios Dalmasca-Nabradia I are crowned, in what is far from the final insult, by the newest of the Empire's Judges Magister.


	3. Iiii: Galbana Lillies

_I.iii_

_Galbana Lillies_

**Rabanaster**

Vaan does not see the coronation, because he is in the Covent Hospital, on the third floor, second room from the stairs, watching his brother die.

Three healers hovered over Reks, buzzing quietly in medical and magickal terms that Vaan did't understand. He was banished to the hard backed chair in the corner, next to a vase of those flowers his brother liked – Galbana lillies, he thinks they're called – with Penelo gripping his hand tighter and tighter as Reks's skin grew whiter and whiter.

Penelo stared at Reks as though she could see the life seeping out of him. Vaan stared at the flowers, already wilted.


	4. Iiv: Closed and Opened Doors

_I.iv_

_Closed and Opened Doors_

**Rabanaster**

The Empire, Penelo learned quickly, liked to talk about rights, and about representing the people. Though an Archadian now ruled Dalmasca, the woman – Drace was her name – was officially only the head of the judicial system. A Council of Fice was created and five prominent, politically neutral citizens of the once-kingdom (all human, Penelo noticed) selected to sit as interim members. The people of Dalmasca Territory were told that in five years a new Council would be selected, this time by popular vote: this was just a transitional phase everyone must pitch in to make it go as smoothly as possible, the Empire is no monster, the people of Dalmasca will be represented in government as they never were while the monarchy held power. Vaan called the Council of Five the Council of Traitors, and had half the city copying him within a month of the coronation.

Across the border in what had been Nabradia, there were mass executions.

* * *

In the sewers (there had been talk of rerouting the sewage system and opening up the old warrens to habitation. The Council had disapproved and the talk had slowed down. Prime Judge Drace had disapproved and it had stopped cold.) there lived Filo's Rebels. Penelo checked on them from time to time to make sure they were niether starving or building bombs. About six months after the Archadian troops marched in to Rabanaster, the Rebels asked Penelo to take them to central square, because the Imps were letting people get tested for high magickal aptitude for free. Penelo agreed. There were a lot of good apprenticeships for kids the Rebels' ages with the gift.

* * *

"You should try too, Penelo!" Kytes laughed, flush with the victory of his newfound talent. Filo rolled her eyes, a little jealous.

There was the feeling of a carnival in the air. Most of the people there were children or parents, and consequently the street vendors and their wares were out in force, with sweet meats, sparkling trinkets, and simple toys being especially prominent.

Penelo shrugged, grinning. "Why not?"

* * *

"I'm not asking you Vaan, I'm telling you!" Her voice was hoarse, tears were gathering at the corners of her eyes. "This is my chance Vaan," she calls after him, still trying to persuade him, wanting her friend's blessing.

He slamed the door behind him and hadn't come back when Penelo and Kytes left for the Akademy three days later, a pair of letters granting them gratis entrance by virtue of extraordinary magickal talent tucked into the bottom of her bag.


	5. Iv: Judge of Truth

_I.v_

_Judge of Truth_

**Royal Palace, Rabanaster**

It was, the newly promoted Captain Vossler York Azelas found, extremely difficult to run a resistance movement when your occupier had the most loyal of the old armed forces bogged down in ceremonial duties and peacekeeping. Vossler had half a mind to be grateful for the situation. He knew, perhaps better than anyone else in Dalmasca Territory, how bad thing could have been: He had friends in Nabradia. An ever dwindling number of friends.

* * *

Prime Judge Drace came into his office late one night, or rather very early one morning , when he had carelessly left the door open, and so caught him reading a letter from a minor Nabradian Noble, one Lord Laenar. Drace, dress not in her armour but in her nightgown and with her feet bare, was able to get within two feet of him before he noticed her presence: The sound of light breatihing behind him alerted him to the alien occupant of the room, but he did not acknowledge it.

"House Laenar," said an unmistakable voice as a shockingly bare hand reached over his shoulder to get a better look at the document's seal., and Vossler was doubly glad not to have hidden the letter which was written in code and seemingly a simple piece of correspondence between friends. Such an action, in front of the Prime Judge would have been extremely foolish. "The lord and lady were executed three days past."

Vossler did put the letter away then.

"I am often puzzled," he said, "as to why things in Dalmasca are not as they are in Nabradia."

"Dalmasca _Territory_," Drace replied, "is part of the Empire. Old Nabradia is a colony."

"And so we of Dalmasca have more rights?"

She nodded. "And more duties." Vossler could not help but notice the way the Prime Judge's silk nightgown clung to leanly muscled body.

"If I may ask, Prime Judge - "

"You are Captain of the Royal guard, Drace interrupted. "You are not my subordinate." They both knew it was a lie, but perhaps lies were what they needed to create a new truth.

"Why are you in my office thus attired?" he asked.

"To see if you were the sort of man who would ask, despite your position." There was nothing but truth in that, or in her lips reaching up to his cheek.


	6. Ivi: The World Turns

_Ia.vi_

_The World Turns_

**Archades**

"He's not mad, you know," said Lord Vayne Solidor, and Ffamran laughed the sound echoing dully within the confines of helmet.

"Turn around," the Emperor's son said.

Ffamran looked at him questioningly, managing to convey his incredulity over the curved beak that protruded from his helmet and through the dark lenses he'd had put in instead of vision-restricting eye-slits. He turned, and saw Venat for the first time.


	7. IIi: Almonds and Egg Whites

_II.i_

_Almonds and Egg Whites_

**Archades, the Akademy**

Two weeks into a new life of classes in magickal theory she could barely grasp, practical magick that came fairly easily, incomprehensible Remedial Language Skills 1, confusing Remedial History of Archadia 1, and algebraics that weren't all that different from helping Miguelo with the books, and Penelo was eating alone. Kytes had rapidly made friends his own age, but eight year-olds were apparently a lot more accepting than people halfway through their teen years. At meals, Penelo was either accosted by a chattering swarm of children briefly or sat by herself at a table in the corner of the Great Hall for the entire meal, studying her books and her strange Archadian food with equal confusion.

* * *

"It's marzipan."

Penelo turned away from the fruit-shaped mystery on her desert plate to find a young boy, dark haired and pale skinned, two or three years older than Kytes smiling up at her in a slightly condescending manner.

"It's almond past, egg whites, and sugar. I looked it up, because it's my favorite," said the boy, seating himself with unusual dignity for a child, even a well-off Archadian child, in the chair next to her. "Are you going to eat it?"

"Uh, no. You can have it," said Penelo. Almonds, a familiar favorite, were tempting, but not mixed with egg whites. Penelo found herself staring at her companion. She hadn't seen this boy before, but that just meant he wasn't one of Kytes's friends. She slid the dessert plate over to him.

"My thanks to you, m'lady," the boy said, then he dug into the false fruit with barely contained enthusiasm.

Penelo snorted. "I'm no lady," she said.

"Anyone," the boy replied, setting down the confection, or what remained of it, "who is willing to give up marzipan is surely deserving of a title." He turned and grinned at her. Penelo giggled slightly, smiling back.

"So," she asked, when the boy was done with the marzipan and trying to lick his fingers without her seeing, "what curriculum are you taking?"

"Oh, I'm not a student. I have a private tutor. I'm just waiting for the guards to find me."

"Wait, what?"

The boy smiled at her again, this time conspiratorially, and Penelo realized that his previous smiles had been those of a much older person, but not this one. "It's a game I play," he said. "I run from Judge Rakans, and he and the guards try to find me." The boy stood. "I must be going now. I'm like to set a new record if I keep moving. Goodbye, m'lady."

* * *

"... and let us pray," said Brother Picannal, the monk who lead the weekly services that all students were required to attend, "for the swift return of Lord Larsa Ferrinas Solidor, missing these past three days..."


	8. IIii: Knowing Killers

_II.ii_

_Knowing Killers_

**Rabanaster**

The Archadians made a scholar of Vaan.

* * *

Filo wanted to make a bomb.

"Penelo used to joke," she said, "that we were going to."

Filo and the rest were convinced that Penelo and Kytes would return to Rabanaster powerful mages and help them win back independence. Vaan would have liked to have been convinced they were coming back at all.

"Don't you dare," he told Filo. "You'll get yourselves blown up." Filo began to protest, but Vaan cut her off. "Leave it to me."

* * *

The Royal Library (everyone calls it that, though it's technically the Rabanaster Library now) does not lend out books to just anyone. Thus, Vaan stole them. He didn't bother with the basics at first, figuring he could piece together the beginnings from the ends, but he found he was wrong. It took him several months to understand enough alchemy and chemics for his purposes, which suited him just fine, since it meant he was ready precisely on the one year anniversary of the occupation.

* * *

Collaborators are traitors. The occupying forces couldn't help being Archadian born and raised. Collaborators were the knowing killers, those who, fully aware of the meaning of their actions, were cutting away at all that was Dalmasca, harvesting her a piece at a time for their blind masters' table. This was the message, well and clearly sent, by the bombing of the headquarters of the city guard.


	9. IIiii: Steel Hands

* * *

  


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Author's Note: I'd just like to thank all my reviewers here on , especially Alceon for reviewing first and most frequently. It really means a lot to me that you guys like this story. You should also know that I usually update my personal live journal, hyperion-rising., before I update on . Once more, thanks guys.

* * *

_II.iii_

_Steel Hands_

**Rabanaster**

The Queen of Dalmasca awoke at four hours past midnight from a nightmare of a monstrous bird with silver-bright scales, back by countless figures in the duller metal skins of Archadian Judges, ripping her heart from her chest. Such abstract nightmares did not often trouble her sleep, so this one came as all the more of a shock. Ashe found herself unable to return to her slumber. She slipped out of her husband's loose embrace, slid into her dressing gown, and padded into her office to work on her speech for the opening of the new collegium on Shiva's Day of the next week. She was still debating how to applaud the new emphasis on education while lambasting, with the correct degree of subtlety, the force behind it when dawn broke with a sound like battle-thunder and a shaking of the palace walls that dislodged a painting of Libranar B'nargin Dalmasca III that had frightened Ashe when she was young.

* * *

The queen came dressed in fine cotton, her guard in old steel, and they found that the judges in their new steel were already there, and the situation under control, so to speak.

* * *

There were, in Ashelia's opinion, two types of control to be used in a situation such as this.

The first, Prime Judge Drace had beaten her to, for all that the Judge was not there herself: the healers, magickal and mundane, were organized, the gathering crowd held back, and the reubble was being moved. Dalmascan laborers did the last.

The second type of control, Ashe quickly seized: She sent her guard – Vossler protested and was silenced with a look – to aid in the removal of the debris and the search for more survivors. She made sure their Dalmascan armor was clearly visible for a time before they took it off. She spoke: first to the anxious family members among the crowd, because they would remember, for all that they were panicked now; then to the injured, who might well not remember, because those who saw would, and because it was right.

* * *

The day wore on, and Prime Judge Drace arrived. Ashe was working with the apprentice healers now, carrying bandages, medical instruments, and curatives. Vossler had been following her like a dog, trying to convince her to at least stay out of the actual site of the explosion (Ashe hadn't seen, until that day, a wound so grievous that moving the victim would mean death). She assumed he had given up when she noticed he was no longer with her, until she glimpsed him out of the corner of her eye, deep in conversation with the Judge.

* * *

Eighteen years old and already she could make her words honey and iron all at once. Ashe did not let her pride in herself show as she spoke to Prime Judge Drace, but that did not cool its burning heat in her chest.

"Prime Judge Drace. I assume you are here to begin the investigation?"

The armored head turned toward her and nodded, a mock bow.

"No, Your Majesty. This is too grave a matter to be dealt with on a territorial level. My superior, Judge Magister Bunansa, will be coming from Archades to head the investigation."

Bunansa. The man who had headed her farce of a coronation. Ashe took an involuntary half-step back. Drace moved to follow her, and Vossler put an armored hand on the Judge's shoulder to stop her, a strangely intimate gesture.


	10. IIiv: The Word

Note: I'd once again like to thank everyone who reviewed, and Logistika Nyx, who gave me a read-through.

* * *

_II.iv_

_The Word_

**The Phon Coast**

Fifty years without the Green Word, and yet when Fran was exhausted she still expected to hear its whisper in her mind, warning her of danger. She still depended on it, when she wasn't thinking clearly, even though it wasn't there to depend on.

* * *

"The emperor is willing to overlook race for his more talented servants," said the Prime Judge – you could tell their rank from the subtle differences in their armor, if you knew how to look – as he approached Fran, held down by three of his subordinates and a dozen arcane spells. "You should have accepted the offer."


	11. IIv: Shall We Dance?

A/N: Oh the humanity! More marzipan, or at least a reference to it!

_II.v_

_Shall We Dance?_

**The Royal Palace in Rabanaster**

A reception was held in Judge Bunansa's honor, theoretically hosted by the Queen and King. Ashe had certainly had nothing to do with planning it. She was glad of the chance, however, to see the Judge Magister sit through an entire banquet in full armor, as he was required to do at such an occasion. He retired to his assigned guest quarters when the dancing began, begging a rest after his long journey and a chance to begin reviewing the case.

* * *

"Fond of almonds, are you, Your Majesty?" asked the man standing beside Ashe at the refreshment table. She was filling a small dish with the aforementioned nuts. He was heaping pastries onto an already overloaded dinner plate that most certainly should not have been present after the banquet proper.

The man, Archadian by his accent, was quite tall, nearly six feet she would guess, with tawny hair slicked back against his head. He wore the uniform of a minor functionary, and Ashe guessed that he was only present at this function due to family connections of some sort.

"We have a dessert in Archadia called marzipan which is made chiefly from almonds. I would venture to guess that Your Majesty would much enjoy it." He set his plate down. "Would you care to dance, m'lady?"

Ashe, taken aback by the man's forwardness towards one who outranked him by so much, replied with what she felt later was an unfortunate lack of manners. "No," she said simply, and walked away.


End file.
